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Following the Firestone tragedy in which two young men were killed, a young son was left without a father, and his mother, the wife of one of the men, was seriously injured, we asked that you establish an independent committee to investigate the causes of that gas explosion and determine the risks of recurrence.

We made that request in two letters dated May 2 and 3, 2017. They are attached for your reacquaintance. We have had no reply. Indeed, it appears you are still committed to allowing the industry to investigate and judge its own accident.

In this nation, industrial accidents are investigated by independent government entities to determine their cause and any corrective action needed to protect the public. Negligence is not ruled out as a contributing factor until all the facts are known. That approach needs to be adopted in this case. You must abandon your hands off, “business friendly” regulatory approach. The facts demand it.

Indeed, we question the adequacy of Anadarko Petroleum closing down 3000 vertical wells, most of which are low producing wells, since the shut downs result in only a 3 percent loss in overall oil and gas production for the company. This “abundance of caution,” as they term it, smacks a little of the wolf in granny’s clothes. They would have us believe that the problem is with old vertical wells, when in fact, the new, industrial-size, horizontal wells, 10 to 40 wells on a pad, pose an even greater threat to public safety, in our estimation. Size matters, and all wells grow old and eventually leak, as even the industry admits. In our opinion, all operations, old and new, and not just pipelines from old wells, need to be independently evaluated. The issues are gas leakage, pipeline alignment and maintenance, and well proximity to humans. All must be independently evaluated for the risks they pose to the public, especially those living close to the industry’s infrastructure, i.e., wells, pipelines, and storage facilities. Continue reading →

After 5 months of doing nothing of value, although spending millions in the furtherance thereof, the Colorado legislature closed up shop last month. The people should demand a refund for nonperformance, but instead they will have to ante up more money to pay legislators and other top state and county officials. The wages of nothingness are great. In 2019 the legislature will award itself a 41 percent pay increase; the governor a 39 percent increase.

Pay increases for top-of-the-pyramid public servants had already been realized in Weld County, the epicenter for the fracking wars in Colorado. There, the county commissioners received a 37 percent increase in pay to $120,000, plus retirement and health benefits. Later, as antidote to the red-faced disease, the salary was scaled back to $105,000, only a blushing increase of 17 percent.

Subject: Second request for an independent investigation of the causes of the Firestone explosion and the risks of reoccurrence
5/3/2017

Dear Governor:

We appreciate that you are taking the risks associated with the Firestone explosion seriously. And while we are loath to play the dog in the manger, we think your response as presented in the Denver Post has weaknesses borne of your need to respond to the public outcry in a timely manner.

We again request, as in our original letter of 2 days ago, an independent investigation. We think the public’s interest can only be served in this way, with an independent investigative panel empowered to hold hearings and gather information free of any outside influences.

Government’s first and primary function, as you know, is to protect public health and safety. That responsibility cannot be shunted off to the oil and gas industry. Such a regulatory formulation, given the circumstances at hand, is unacceptable. Indeed, in our opinion, oil and gas’s control of the playing field contributed to this disaster, and we are not convinced that their economic interests will allow them to be disinterested investigators. In fact, the concept is laughable. Think of Upton Sinclair’s expose of the meat packing industry in The Jungle as instructive.Thus, our recommendations are as follows:

It seems highly unlikely that Anadarko, with its after-the-fact claim to be closing its lines out of an “abundance of caution,” can be relied upon to clean up what some observers believe is an Augean mess. For instance, we do not understand why Anadarko would not have analyzed the reasons for production shortfall and taken corrective steps if gas production was below anticipated or historical levels when the Firestone well was reopened. If any reasonable analysis were undertaken, wouldn’t they have discovered the open valve to the old line they somehow forgot(?) to close?

Our citizen experts think it was more likely a problem with the cement-on-steel seal–an integral part of every well construction that chronically fails over time and for which no solution exists. How a leaky well seal, a commonplace, especially on older wells, and an open valve to an abandoned line may have intersected in creating the tragedy is unknown, but should be investigated thoroughly. This odd and suspicious coincidence, combined with the chronic well seal problem, should cause any reasonable person to ask how many wells are there out there that have closed off or abandoned lines, and how safe are the seals and valves at the wells that close off those old lines? Indeed, how safe are the seals and valves at wells to working lines? What is the life expectancy of well seals and valves? What are industry SOPs on inspection and replacement? We cannot and should not let the industry answer these questions absent independent public oversight.

There are other open questions as well, but this is front and center at the moment given what has been reported in the press. Corrosion of old lines also worries us. What protections are in place to insure that old lines, thought to be steel, are still safe? And what is the life expectancy of the steel lines and the newer plastic lines? And of course there is the overarching question of when is the state going to address the total lack of inspection of gathering lines and transport lines, of which there are many thousands of miles? It shakes our confidence further when the COGCC’s Director Matt Lepore tells us they don’t have good information on the location, age, and disposition of oil and gas supply lines in the field.

I don’t think it is wild eyed to suspect either a cover up to keep wells working or something approaching criminal negligence. This rush to final judgment without hearings in which technical experts can add to the fire department’s assessment is unseemly. Moreover, Matt Lapore’s assurance another incident is unlikely to occur doesn’t carry weight. He is a lawyer, not an expert, engineer, or scientist with deep technical knowledge.

The ringing question is still, what is the risk this incident exposed, what holes did this incident expose in the state’s regulatory framework, especially with regard to seal, valve, and pipeline inspection and safety, and what standards are used or should be used to assess risk? The public in fracked cities and communities, from experience, have no confidence in the COGCC or Director Lepore.

Government has to take this lack of confidence seriously. After all, government’s first constitutional duty, as we said at the outset, is to assure the public’s health and safety. Until an independent risk assessment is made, and independent experts can review the information and the decision process, it will continue to look and smell like a quick burial of public concern, coinciding with the burial of the two young men killed tragically by an incident that government assures us is unlikely to reoccur. We are not persuaded, and with good reason.

Finally, we welcome your understanding that there is a giant loophole in the state regulations regarding developers. The oil and gas industry, without a request for variance, which can be granted, must observe setbacks of 500 feet from homes and 1000 feet from schools, hospitals, and some other high occupancy buildings. Yet this standard is not applied to developers. Forget for the moment, as the COGCC recognizes, there is no scientific evidence to support the present industry setbacks–they are simply cosmetic and in response to public alarm–how can the state look the other way in allowing setbacks of only a 150 feet for developers in some instances, and maybe none at all, in others? In fact, our intelligence is that some houses have been built over old abandoned wells and gathering lines.

Is the issue here public safety and the protection thereof, or is government trying to placate the developers at the same time it is playing a different placating game with the oil industry and yet another placating game with homeowners, city and county governments, and others sitting on top of various oil and gas infrastructure?? Your promise that the state will look at this loophole is not convincing. If the 500 and 1000-foot setbacks are minimums for the oil industry, how can they be any different for the developers? That loophole should be closed without delay if indeed it is the public’s health and safety we are interested in.

In an open letter to Governor Hickenlooper, Be The Change Environmental Director, Phil Doe, responds to the house explosion that occured in Firestone on April 17th. Below is the complete text of the letter.

Dear Governor:

Almost two weeks ago two young men were killed and a woman, the new wife of one of the men, was critically injured when the couple’s home exploded in Firestone, Colorado. Eight days later Anadarko shut 3000 wells in the general vicinity of the destroyed home. Late last week, in the wake of the Firestone disaster, Great Western Oil and Gas shut down 61 of its wells with product pipelines that are within 250 feet of occupied buildings.

Our chief concern with the Firestone tragedy is that the state will cover up, disguise, or sanitize the findings, that it will not be honest with the people, that it will actively work to shelter the industry. Neither the Firestone fire department, with its limited technical resources, nor the state oil and gas commission should be in charge of this critical investigation. Thus, we ask that you call for an independent investigation by a disinterested scientific body, beholding to neither local nor state government. Dwindling public trust demands swift and strong state action.

This request is not overkill. In 2013, after the Poudre Valley flood, the state, with little to no independent information of its own, rubber stamped the industry’s declaration that despite numerous oil and gas facilities being flooded, with some being carried down river, the event resulted in minimal damage, with little risk to the public’s health or safety. Similarly, the state and its chief medical officer, Dr. Larry Wolk, have discounted two studies from the Colorado School of Public Health which document significant increases in leukemia and birth defects among individuals living near oil and gas wells.

We do not want these intemperate denials cavalierly repeated. Fugitive gas leakage into homes and businesses constitutes a dangerous and apparently imminent threat to the public’s health and safety. Blind deference to industry must cease. Colorado must accept its constitutional obligation to, first, protect public health and safety. Only an independent investigation will give the public confidence its interests are being protected.

In fiction there is a thing called the unreliable narrator because what he relates is fantastical and lacks substantiation. Peter Moore is one of those unreliable narrators.

Colorado does not have the strongest fracking rules in the nation. The strongest rules are those that ban the practice. New York is but one of those states. Indeed, whole nations have banned the practice out of public health concerns

Moore assures us it is only tree dwelling Yahoo environmentalists who have opposed the oil industry’s rule of the state. Actually, it is the families threatened by oil wells in their backyard and schoolyards who form the backbone of the resistance.

Moore claims voter approval of industry sponsored Amendment 71, which denies the public the right of majority rule on constitutional issues, settles the matter. He fails to mention that the industry spent over $27 million in a extended propaganda campaign to achieve this result.

He also fails to mention that as a corporate lawyer he founded Vital for Colorado, an oil and gas front group, and that Vital contributed $655,000 to Amendment 71 funding.

Southern Oregon is under attack. The natural gas industry is proposing the Jordan Cove LNG Export Project and the Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline {JCPC} which will be 100% dependent on fracked gas from both the Canadian and U.S. Rockies, especially Colorado.

Veresen, Inc., a Canada based corporation proposed to build an LNG export terminal at the Port of Coos Bay, Oregon and an accompanying 36-inch 230+ mile high pressured natural gas pipeline across Southern Oregon. The pipeline will traverse some of the most pristine lands in the United States, cross more than 400 water bodies, and cause the loss of hundreds of acres of old-growth forests and impact numerous endangered species on land, in our rivers and our coastal waters. The company has threatened private landowners with eminent domain to take their properties; I am one of those landowners. In addition to the terminal and pipeline, the project requires the construction of a power plant [South Dunes Power Plant] that will become the biggest greenhouse gas emitter in the State of Oregon and tie local rural communities to a fossil fuel economy for decades to come.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission denied JCPC in March of 2016. Project owner Veresen, Inc., a Canada based corporation has filed an appeal requesting that FERC reconsider its decision. FERC’s last action was a tolling order, which is a decision to re-examine it’s previous rejection. To date FERC has taken no action. When they do, we hope they deny the project, but we need Coloradan’s help to ensure this happens.

Currently the only voices being heard in Colorado are those in favor of the project. In recent months Veresen has spent considerable time and energy soliciting Colorado local governments and industry entities to contact and lobby FERC in support of the project. Many Colorado government entities and businesses have responded; Garfield County Commissioners letter is the most recent. Veresen has been successful in soliciting an outpouring of letters in support of fracked Colorado gas for the Pacific Connector and Jordan Cove projects.

Oregonians have a very active and organized opposition group working hard each day to prevent this project from being built and do their best to thwart the efforts of Colorado’s pro-fracking interests. We need your help and your voices to join with us in opposition. I’m asking your organization and its members to submit letters to FERC opposing the Jordan Cove and Pacific Connector projects. FERC must be aware there is strong opposition in Colorado to the proliferation of natural gas for these Oregon projects. If there is no pipeline or export terminal, the demand for Colorado’s resources will decrease, in particular water and its growing use in the fracking industry.

Under our state constitution, the right of citizens to legislate, Article V, has been termed a first right, superior even to that of the legislature’s. The Court ignored this right in its decision.

The citizens in those cities, by means of direct popular vote, had attempted to postpone or ban oil and gas drilling within their city limits because of overriding public health and safety concerns. These concerns are universally recognized as legitimate except in some political circles

The court also ruled that citizens have no inalienable rights as guaranteed in our Bill of Rights because the legislature had preempted those rights in the Oil and Gas Conservation Act. By this legislation, those rights belong to a small state agency, the COGCC, that works primarily to encourage oil and gas development.

Phil Doe, Environmental Director for Be the Change said: “If your ears don’t prick up at this decision, then you need a good ear doctor. Cut away the lofty language used to disguise greed and plunder, and what the court said is that we have no inalienable rights when it comes to oil and gas development. The legislature took those rights and gave them to their true friends on 16th Street. This will not stand. The power structure can only steal from us if we let them.”

Barbara Mill-Bria, Be the Change’s president said: “This may be a long hot summer. You can’t vote against the interests of the people over and over again without blowback. The people are not happy waking up to find an oil rig in their back yard and being told they have no real say in the matter. This is the opposite of democracy.”

Wes Wilson, Science Advisor, Be the Change, said: “You know, at some point people will start to understand that we’ve been sold a bill of goods. Less than two percent of the state is in incorporated cities and towns. Is there nowhere that Little Timmy and Maria are to be allowed to play without the threat of a gas well spewing poison on them. Hell, apparently every acre in the state is up for grabs. And the Supreme Court is in on the job.”

Dan Leftwich, attorney for Be the Change said: “Article V of the Colorado Constitution was amended in 1910 because the people were concerned about the corrupting influence of special interests in state government. That is the situation Colorado citizens are encountering today as special interests use the state’s power to preempt local communities from protecting their health, safety and the environment. In Article V, the people reserved the power to pass legislation of every character, independent of the general assembly, precisely to put such decisions beyond the reach of the state. These fundamental rights cannot be preempted because they are superior to the powers of the legislature, the executive branch, and the municipal governments in which these initiatives were enacted. These rights were not presented to the Supreme Court because the voters were not represented there, only the municipal governments that were opposed to these initiatives from the beginning. As a result, the Court’s opinions issued today are not controlling precedent where the people’s right of initiative is raised as a defense. Today marks a new chapter, not the end of these disputes.”

This study did not treat seismicity directly, but it still gives added compelling evidence, if any were needed, of the danger associated with fracking, one of which this bill addresses. Moreover, HB 1310 moves in the direction of sanity and supports our state constitution’s admonition in the Bill of Rights concerning political power and to whom it rightfully belongs:

“All political power is vested in and derived from the people,… originates from the people, is founded upon their will only, and is instituted solely for the good of the whole.”

The Oil and Gas Conservation Act is an abuse of this constitutional guiding principle, and this is really what I came here to say, for it steals away the people’s right to self determination and bestows it ignominiously on the oil and gas industry. If this were not true, if this had not been done, you would not have the growing rebellion by citizens in cities and towns threatened by fracking, and you would not have this bill before you today.

In summation, I implore you all to review a decision made by your legislative predecessors. They gave the COGCC the right of preemption. In so doing they took away the rights of the people to self-determination on all matter oil and gas. They acted unlawfully, unconstitutionally, in my opinion, for they effectively revoked the constitutional guaranteed right of the people to legislate directly through the initiative process, Article V–The right to determine by popular vote what is best for their city, neighborhoods, and, yes, even state.

Such an abridgement of rights cannot stand, for as Tom Paine correctly observed in the Rights of Man, “The strength of government and the happiness of the governed” is sustained only when the common people have freedom to “mutually and naturally support each other.”

Also, I would like to invite your attention to a very recent legal review of the whole initiative process and how the state has acted illegally to thwart the peoples right to direct democracy. The author is attorney Dan Leftwich. His brilliant paper can be found at : http://minddrivelegal.com/blog/

A few days ago, the Denver Post published an editorial – Colorado oil and gas bill deserves defeat – that urged legislators to defeat HB1355, which decrees that “local governments can determine where new industrial activities occur within their jurisdiction through zoning ordinances and resolutions.” In response, Be The Change’s Environmental Advisor – Wes Wilson – wrote the following letter:

The Post’s editorial board deliberately and doggedly continues to ignore health damages from fracking. Dr. Lisa McKenzie and her colleagues at the Anschutz Medical School demonstrated that living next to oil and gas wells in Colorado increases the chances of birth defects.1

Dr. Theo Colborn’s careful year-long study of toxic emissions from drilling found cancer-causing benzene, methyl chloride, and a host of other toxic gases that harm health.2 These toxic emissions were ubiquitous even among properly operating wells.

Governments must act to protect public health and safety, for these are its highest functions. Clearly, in satisfying these overarching concerns, government can and must restrain mineral rights development when health and safety are threatened. County commissions and city councils have the authority to restrict gravel mining to comply with their zoning rules to preserve property values and protect publlc safety. The regulation of the oil and gas industry must be subject to the same standards. Moreover, a takings claim under the 5th amendment would be difficult to demonstrate given the industry’s track record of being able to drill horizontally from to 2 to 3 miles out. Moreover, a claim of takings would be impossible to make given the present depressed price for oil and gas. These prices make fracking uneconomic and have much of this heavily leveraged industry sliding into default and bankruptcy. There is little likelihood this trend will change in the near or mid term.

Oil and gas production contribute to climate change; their toxic emissions damage the health of those living nearby; and most of the organic compounds that make Colorado’s Front Range unable to comply with federal ozone standards come from oil and gas operations. The editorial board at the Post must stop bobbing like an Ostrich, tell the people of the dangers associated with fracking, or lose its right to be a voice of the people. It has no right to lie, repeatedly, as a public voice. As a voice of corporate interests, it of course does.